This autumn, David Cameron and Nick Clegg will be setting out the achievements the coalition has made and what is still left to do. Rather than wait, Portland has done the job for them - on 12 September, at an event in London, we will launch our first policy review.

As someone so recently involved in designing the Conservatives' - and
then the coalition's - programme for government, it can be difficult to
assess it objectively.

Fortunately, the sceptics at Portland are less partisan, and the review
sets out what has gone well for the Government and what hasn't. Every
government has ups and downs. This one is no different. What is
important is whether it gets the big decisions right and that the
lessons of government are learned.

First among these is that only policy programmes for which a complete
political strategy has been created will succeed. This has been achieved
for the schools, welfare and localism agendas.

The painful experiences of the health reforms, however, show that strong
principles are not enough. The mess of child benefit reforms shows
governments acting in haste nearly always leads to repenting at
leisure.

Second, the Government has placed a huge bet on the innovation and
productivity of the private sector to deliver better public services.
While the economic and social gains of success could be transformative,
the political risks of failure are huge, particularly for the Liberal
Democrats, whose belief in the power of the markets is less zealous.

Finally, governments must learn to expect the unexpected. The Prime
Minister did not anticipate fighting a war in his first 18 months in
government. The eurozone could explode at any minute. The Prime Minister
will be hoping that our review in 2015 shows that 'events, dear boy' did
not blow him from the tough course he has chosen.